Johnson eyes return to old self

Andre Johnson wants to be like an antique that gets more valuable with age.

Entering his 10th season and just weeks after from his 31st birthday, he’s hearing he’s too old to excel the way he did before suffering two hamstring injuries that cost him nine regular-season starts last year and undergoing arthroscopic knee surgery that forced him to miss OTAs and minicamp this summer.

“I feel like I have a lot to prove. I want to show people I can still play at a high level. I know I can still put up big numbers.”
Johnson (6-3, 230) plans to put up the kind of numbers that made him one of the two best receivers in the NFL with Arizona’s Larry Fitzgerald.
Johnson caught 115 passes for 1,575 yards and eight touchdowns in 2008. He followed up that performance with 101 receptions for 1,569 yards and nine touchdowns a year later.

Injuries cut short run
In 2010, Johnson was on his way to a third consecutive 100-catch, 1,500-yard season when a knee injury forced him to miss the last three games. He finished with 86 catches for 1,216 yards and eight touchdowns.

“I think I can do it (again) as long as I’m healthy,” Johnson said. “I think if I was healthy it would have been accomplished (last season).

“I’m really pumped now because I missed a lot of time last year. It’s a new training camp, and I’m healthy and ready to go again.”
Johnson doesn’t want a repeat of last season when his injuries left him with career lows in catches (33), yards (492) and touchdowns (two).

In essence, Johnson spent too much time last season being an expensive cheerleader.

“It was probably the worst feeling (of my career),” Johnson said. “Even though you’re on the team, when you’re not playing you kind of feel like you’re not a part of it.

“My teammates made me feel very comfortable. Every time they accomplished something, they always came back and said, ‘You’re the guy that deserves it the most’ and things like that. It made me feel good, but at the same time you still want to be playing.”

Despite missing time in the regular season, Johnson was at his best in the playoffs. In the victory over Cincinnati and the loss at Baltimore, he caught a combined 13 passes for 201 yards and a touchdown.

“I can’t really say I felt like myself in the playoffs, but I was still able to make plays,” he said. “I feel like the (hamstring) injuries were a setback, but I feel back to normal now.”
In his first nine seasons, Johnson played on two teams that had winning records. Now he has the same goal at his teammates — to win the Super Bowl.
“That’s my ultimate goal, winning the championship,” he said. “At first, it was the playoffs. That was something that always haunted me. I’ve had a chance to play in the playoffs, so now the ultimate goal is winning the (Super Bowl).”

Not a one-man show
If Johnson is going to put up gargantuan numbers and help lead his team to its best season, he’s going to need quarterback Matt Schaub supporting him. When healthy, they’ve been as dangerous a tandem as any in the NFL.

“I’ve been running routes with Matt over the last few weeks,” Johnson said about their private workouts. “We talked about a lot of things. We had a lot of fun. We had a lot of good workouts. It was a great time for us to bond.”

Going into their sixth season as teammates, Johnson and Schaub have the kind of on-field rapport that allows them to communicate without talking.
“We’re as excited about camp as we were as rookies,” said Schaub, who missed the last six games because of foot surgery. “I feel great and ready to go, and Andre does, too.”

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